I contacted Pocket Gamer to see if they would feature my game in any way. They replied by saying that they wanted thousands of dollars for a review. I've had youtubers ask for money but not a magazine before. Is TouchArcade the only magazine site that does not ask for money for reviews?
If you run the math, it is almost never worth paying for reviews. Take any given review. Then try to estimate the number of people that will read it (likely "thousands" for smaller sites at best, and "tens of thousands" for larger sites at best). Then try to estimate the number of people that will then go from there to the App Store to take a closer look (probably somewhere between 5-40%depending on how favourable the review is). Then try to estimate the number of people that will go on to download your game from there (probably 5-30% for a free game, and 3-10% for a paid game). Multiple that number by the average revenue you get per user to estimate your revenue. Chances are the revenue estimate you come up with will be far less that what is being asked for. Almost no reviewer can deliver a positive ROI on their fee ask. Youtube and streamer influencers have a better chance, but usually only in the top tier and that costs a lot of money. You need a massive audience in order to shift meaningful numbers of downloads. Correspondingly, PikPok almost never pays for reviews or coverage. We invest our time and energy in things that can shift the needle or produce a positive ROI such as reaching out to a wide range of free reviewers, building and leveraging our community, and platform featuring.
